MAN WINS SCHOOL SEAT; WIFE TAKES HEALTH POST

LA MESA 
East County voters are getting a double dose of the Stieringers.

The longtime La Mesa residents each won a spot in Tuesday’s election — Jim Stieringer as the newest member of the Grossmont Union High School District board, and Betty Stieringer as top vote-getter for a spot on the Grossmont Healthcare District board.

Jim Stieringer, a retired city treasurer in La Mesa and a 1959 Grossmont High alum, said he probably won’t have any advice for his wife, even though he is director emeritus of the Grossmont Healthcare District, was on the district’s board for 18 years and has a conference center named after him.

That’s because Betty Stieringer, 72, is a registered nurse. She was one of nine candidates for three seats.

Jim Stieringer, 71, who nudged out Gary C. Woods for the second of two seats on the school board, is a former Teledyne Ryan employee and one-time U.S. Air Force captain.

Incumbents Bob Ayres and Michael Emerson took the other two seats on the health care board.

“Betty is far better qualified for the health care district than I was,” Jim Stieringer said, laughing.

Betty Stieringer, who ran unsuccessfully for the La Mesa-Spring Valley School District in the 1980s, worked as a psychiatric liaison in the emergency room at Grossmont Hospital.

“There are some issues I don’t agree with, and it seemed a good time to run,” she said. “One is with the bonds that were approved. I want to see if the funds have been used the right way.”

Jim Stieringer said his first order of business will be to restore a sense of civility to the board.

“I want to develop congeniality among existing board members,” he said. “Maybe I’m naive, but I believe this can be accomplished.”